


Of Christmas and Cults

by Sharkyboy



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Boarding School, Christmas, Fluff, M/M, Mystery, Reluctant Friendship, Winter, slightly dark in the beginning
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-17
Updated: 2018-12-17
Packaged: 2019-09-21 06:57:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,966
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17038922
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sharkyboy/pseuds/Sharkyboy
Summary: Kids getting ill, strange symbols and an unlikely friendship- Lance has no idea what he's getting into





	Of Christmas and Cults

The only evidence of the bustling town of before were the half empty stalls lining the market square; most of the vegetables were hopelessly abandoned and scattered in the streets, leaving a feast for the flies. Even the dog that was a staple around the tables was cowered in the corner of some dirty tavern, his bones almost screaming to burst from his skin and with just enough energy to try and bat away the flies surrounding him. No one knew what time it was, the dark clouds overhead blocked any natural light from illuminating through so night or day it was all the same. The windows of the houses were boarded up in a sad attempt to prevent _it_ and so no light could be seen inside either, and any person that remained behind them stayed silent in fear.

A woman burst out onto the street, skin sunken in and eyes bulging out with an unnatural complexion that made her look dead already. She knelt to the floor in haste and started coughing out reams of blood, now on all fours and the coughing didn’t stop, it was agonising and you could see the pain and terror in her eyes as she gripped the dirty cobbled streets with as much strength as she could. She collapsed on the floor. The blood dipping from her mouth and her eyes and her ears and her nose. Her body and the other countless ones that littered the street would remain there to be eaten or decay right where they fell almost as a warning to the ones inside.

Now further along the street the castle stood, silent and watching its subjects waste away, dropping one by one with nothing to do about it. Winding through the endless corridors were wards filled with the equally sick and helpless as the ones outside but in makeshift hospital beds, here they could not prevent the inevitable but they could make it ache a little less. Throughout the corridors and rooms were the uninfected townspeople who had come to seek shelter, well uninfected was untrue. They were all infected just some less than others- small children who scuttled through the castle in pacts in the early stages of a cough or a mother who’s vision has just begun to go cloudy around the edges. No matter who they were they all knew what would happen to them, but none so much as the man behind the great oak doors at the top of the castle.

King Alfor paced back and forth in his study, “Coran, please!” He begged his lead alchemist. 

Coran looked up him from where he was furiously scribbling on a scroll, “I’m sorry I just don’t know if I can do this.”

“You must!” King Alfor looked like he was going mad, despite his protections his health was fading the most rapidly of them all. He looked out the window to the sad town below and his voice became deadly serious, “This is our only hope, if you can’t do this the whole town and everyone in it will die. I don’t care the cost, this will be done, promise me.” He looked Coran straight in the eyes and it seemed like all his strength had returned to him.

“I promise you.”

It was nearly a week later when Coran knocked on the study door again, all that time Alfor stayed exactly where he was just staring down at the demise of all his hard work and care. He was barely aware that time had even passed. Coran came in with vials of different coloured liquid that radiated some sort of light and Alfor knew that he was ready to do this. Slowly, he pulled out the dagger that he kept in his belt and walked towards the goblet in the middle of the room, Coran was already working his magic on the stone, not even needing a nod to start, and began mixing the various liquids together in a specific pattern and at last he looked up at his king and _friend_ awaiting the final ingredient. 

Alfor took the knife and sliced open his chest, gritting his teeth through the immense amount of pain the was feeling but he did not stop there, cutting trough the tissue and reaching through his already broken ribs he reached for his heart and yanked it out using his remaining strength. Burning pain filled his entire body and he collapsed to the floor, using his final moments to place his beating heart in Coran’s hands. Coran watched through the whole thing, with tears in his eyes fully knowing he could not stop Alfor from doing this and he would forever have to live with this scarring moment in his memory. But he could not stop now, with the feebly beating heart in his right hand and the last vial in his left he chanted the final enchantment with a thick voice and smashed both items into the goblet. It shattered, letting out a blinding light that shot through the entire town and hopefully saving the people from destruction but Coran was still left kneeling on the bloodied floor of the study with a heart filled with guilt and his best friend’s body lying mutilated in front of him. That and the five different coloured stones staring from the floor.

—————

Lance stared up at the ceiling above him and fumbled on his bedside table for his phone; the screen lit up his face, making him squint in the darkness of the room. 2:05. Well shit. He sat up slowly and slipped on his slippers, being careful not to wake up his snoring roommate as he sneaked out. “I should’ve brought a hoodie,” Lance thought to himself as he creeped down the corridor past matron’s room and up the stairs. Another gust of wind blew against his skin and made the hairs on his arm stand on end, he rubbed his hands on his arms and quickened his pace, now climbing the stairs two steps at a time. 

The top floor was mainly unused, there were only a couple of staff rooms and storage cupboards near one end but the other was nearly empty. It was a shame too, it had big overarching windows that gave a view of the whole town. Tonight it was cold enough to frost up the window panes and give little white tufts of frost along the edges, Lance thought they made it seem more cosy inside, although without heating or a blanket it seemed slightly sinister. He crawled up on the window ledge, pulled his knees to his chest and brought out his phone again to text his family, softly smiling as he did so.

It wasn’t often he did this but lately he’d been having trouble sleeping, if the bags under his eyes were anything to go on, and this ledge was a nice spot to just sit and look out onto the sleepy light in the town, wondering about what it would have been like to be here in the past. The sound of footsteps startled him from his position, making him go as frozen as the frost made him feel. He swore underneath his breath and hoped he could blend in with the shadows, if it was a teacher patrolling the halls he’d be fucked for being out so late. 

It was just a girl, he let out a breath and let his heart rate slow down as he got up from the seat, “Hey, you alright?”

The girl turned around in a sort of daze, Lance recognised her from his history class but she looked kind of off somehow.

“I…um…I…er,” She muttered out.

Lance took a step towards her and said, “Must’ve been some pretty strong stuff, I’ll help you get back to the West block if you want, those steps are pretty steep.”

She didn’t respond in any words he could recognise but she pulled out her arm towards him so Lance took that as a sign she would appreciate some assistance. He took her arm and walked back down the corridor, the walls now looking closer and more ominous than before but he shook that off and tried to help steady the girl. It wasn’t until they arrived at her dorm did he notice she was bleeding, the light showed a small symbol that looked like it was almost carved into her collarbone. “Wait, are you sure you’re alright?”

She didn’t even try to respond, just opened the door then slumped inside.

Lance walked back to his room, still confused over the earlier exchange but hoping that she’d be fine in the morning. She would be, right?

—————

“Hey!” 

Lance jolted awake, tipping his chair over and ended up lying flat on his back. Hunk reached his hand out to him, which he gladly accepted and glared at the smiling Pidge sitting on his desk.

“That’s what you get for falling asleep in class,” She said with a smirk still on her face. “You’re just lucky Dr Sinclair’s old enough to not even see past the second row, though you weren’t safe from Keith’s _intense_ glaring, if I knew any better I’d thought he was trying to burn a hole through your skull.”

“Yeah, that sounds about right,” Hunk replied “Come on, you can fall asleep on the lunch table.”

“Nah I’m fine, I think that nap treated me pretty well. I think if I got a recording of one of lessons I might actually be able to get to sleep at night.”

As they entered the dining hall Lance surveyed the room of people to try and spot something, he wasn’t really sure what but he just had a feeling something was going to be off, or rather someone. “Hey, have either of you guys seen Ina lately?” Lance asked, trying to be nonchalant about it all. 

“She wasn’t in English today.” Hunk said

Pidge chimed up and provided Lance with the information he needed, “Yeah she fainted today in the corridors, she was looking really pale I’m guessing they took her to the med centre. Why the sudden interest in her?”

“I saw her wandering the halls last night, she looked really out of it. It was…odd.” Lance didn’t know how else to describe what had happened, he wasn’t even really sure if it had happened it all if he was honest, but it gave him a strange feeling in his gut.

“She probably just caught a cold then, the weather sure is turning shit.” Pidge said back to him.

Lance hummed and nodded his head but he wasn’t entirely convinced.

 

It was later that day when Lance decided to take a quick visit to the med centre, a visit to Ina would tell him that she’s alright and he could finally stop worrying, he’d been thinking about the night before all through the day, trying to recount everything he experienced and the unnerving chill he felt about the way she acted. The medical centre was very much a flash to the past, an ode to the days of the plague Lance supposed, as not much seemed to have change interior design wise in this area. He explained to Sister Lauretta who he was visiting and she opened the curtains to Ina’s bed for him, she looked a lot paler alright and tired but other than that she seemed to be fine. The weirdest thing out of it all was that she was surprised to see him, “You alright?” Lance asked, a dumb question but he couldn’t really think of anything better to say to her.

“Tired but alright, I think. It’s just stress, but Sister said the holidays and some rest will make me feel better.”

“Oh. What about last night?”

Ina’s eyebrows furrowed in confusion, “What about last night?”

“In the corridors, don’t you remember?” Lance unintentionally took a step forwards, and she responded by moving back a little.

“I was in my room all night.” She seemed sure of that and Lance didn’t want to push it, maybe it was just some sort of weird dream he had, that wouldn’t be so unusual. But what about the mark? No it’s fine he should just leave now. They had a little more small talk, mostly about the weather, and then he said his goodbyes and was about to leave but suddenly blurted out, “The mark!”

She looked a little frightened now, shit. He shouldn’t have done that. “What mark?”

“The- the one on your collarbone.” He said a lot quieter now

She pulled down her collar and alas there was the mark, the mark he saw last night but it looked like it was burnt into her skin. “There’s nothing there,” She said

“Right…yeah. I probably need a break as well,” He tried to laugh it off “Hope you get better soon.” With that he walked out off there, a head filled with a new jumble of thoughts and no way to untangle them.

 

A week or so had passed since the incident, Ina now (understandably) avoided all eye contact with him in history class but Lance tried to put the whole thing behind him, no matter how much it bugged him to do so. It was nearly the Christmas holidays and it was all anyone could really focus on, he couldn’t wait to be back at home again with his family and his mothers cooking, oh her cooking even the thought of it made him hungry and he was so close to finally tasting it again. As good at Hunk was at cooking, no one could replicate her food.

 

Lance fell through his lessons in a semi catatonic state, only barely paying attention to whatever his teachers droned on about. At least this was the time of year they were becoming more lenient towards their students, dreaming about the weeks curled up in bed with no work themselves and spending time with their own families. It was only when they had to do sports did Lance perk up a little, he wasn’t half bad at football and it gave him an excuse to let out all his pent up energy he’d accumulated from just sitting around all day. After getting changed in the cramped and slightly musky changing rooms he walked outside into a blast of chilly air; now you see _that_ was the bad thing about football, the uniform which exposed their legs to the harsh weather conditions no matter what, but at least they were allowed to wear a fleece on top. He could see Keith already on the field dribbling the ball between his feet and blowing air out of his mouth to create small plumes of smoke, with a small smile on his face as he did so.“Hey,” Lance shouted to him and began to raise his hand in a wave, but the recipient quickly turned his back towards him, shielding his face away.

“I don’t know why you even bother,” Hunk said to him as they both made their way to the centre of the field where the bags of footballs were.

Lance just hummed slightly in response and started a quick warm up with Hunk. Soon the wind became a lot stronger, whipping Lance’s hair across his face and obscuring his vision slightly, the boys all hoped coach would get there quick to they could start a game, moving around more might get them to warm up a little quicker.

Soon Ryan just took control and split everyone up randomly to just start the game, Lance ended up on the same team as Hunk (luckily) who took his place in goal and then they started. It was going alright, just like any other game really. Lance’s position wasn’t a proper one like striker or midfield but more of a position he was assigned by coach- the runner. His aim was to sprint around the pitch distracting tiring out the other team member who felt obligated to follow him round, he was a pretty decent runner so it played to his strengths really. It wasn’t very often Lance actually got a hold of the ball so whenever he did he sure as hell wanted to keep on to it, he manoeuvred around the other players, dribbling down the pitch as fast as he could. But he could Keith out the corner of his eye ready to steal it away from him, that wasn’t gonna happen on his watch. Keith was gaining on him but Lance was so nearly close to getting in a good spot to score so he picked up his speed.

 

A crow called out in the air and broke Lance from his rhythm. He suddenly stopped almost in shock and cause Keith to crash into him in an alarming rate so they both collapsed on the floor and groaned. Lance then stood up, still in a daze with the world slightly spinning around him and offered his hand to Keith still on the wet ground. Keith looked at him, slightly confused and took a while before slowly taking his hand up. He muttered a small “Thanks.” Then ran away to join the game.

 

—————

 

“Ugh! Can you believe it?” Pidge barged into their room without so much as a knock, “Rolo’s bailed on me, we were doing project together and the day after I ask whether he’s done his half he gets ‘ill’ and goes home.” She said all this with vigorous arm movements and Lance offered up the half eaten chocolate bar in his hand which she took and munched through the next part of her rant, “And I asked his roommate if he was alright, cause I don’t wanna be a total dick about it if he’s actually sick and he says that Rolo didn’t have so much of a sniffle the day before! But that night he went out and came back super late stoned to high heavens, he barely even responded to his own name. Now I have to finish this project _on my own_ while he gets to get an early holiday for faking symptoms while high!” She finished her elaborate rant with flopping onto Hunk’s begin true dramatic fashion.

“What a dick move,” Pidge’s speech actually made Hunk pull away from his homework which had engrossed him for the past two hours.

“I know right.” Pidge said while not moving from her prime sulk position at all.

While her whole speech had been thoroughly entertaining to Lance, it triggered something in his mind which he couldn’t ignore. “Wait, he might actually be ill.”

They both looked at him suspiciously, “How so?” Hunk asked

“Well, I’m not sure but remember what happened with Ina? And you remember what I told you about that night?”

“You think they’re linked?” Pidge asked

“Well, it’s not impossible right?

“Yeah, but I highly doubt something is going on that involves both of them. Plus, Ina is fine now, why did Rolo need to go home?” Pidge tried to reason with him.

“I just have this _feeling,_ okay?”

“You’re probably just stressed, if something really is going on it’ll probably be resolved after the holiday.”

 

Lance went back to his work but like last week his mind kept going back, this could be the thing that proves he was right and to get to the bottom of this pulling feeling. Maybe it was some kind of drug? He needed to be extra vigilant over the next couple days.

 

—————

A flurry of bird swept across the night sky, Lance could see only glimpses of them through the partially open curtains but it looked like they were trying to get away from something, could this be it? Slowly he tiptoed to the window and pulled back the curtains more, exposing more of his room to the moonlight and peered outside to try and see something, anything. Nothing. It was like the world had stilled when he looked outside, a tableau of the courtyard against the night sky without any sign of life. Then he heard it, a small creak and lock of someone opening and closing a door, if he wasn’t looking out for something he would never have heard it but he froze in realisation that this could be it. 

It took him a moment to gather himself and unfreeze, he padded across to his door and cautiously turned the handle, wincing at any slight noise he made as he closed the door behind him. He was smart enough to bring his phone and a jumper this time, he was prepared at least, he’d even written in his notes a small synopsis of what he was doing and why, just in case the worst case scenario did occur. The phone was pressed against the material of his jumper to dim the flashlight but still allow him to actually have some sort of vision in the unlit halls. The sound of trainers on stone led him down the hall and towards the stairs but when he’d gotten there, the cause had already moved up beyond his line of vision. He felt in heart slowly picking up the pace in his chest but he knew he couldn’t just turn back, so making his steps as quietly as he could he leapt up the stairs with as much grace as he could muster, that was until his foot didn’t quite make the landing onto the full step and it sent him sliding down a couple steps in a heap on the floor. His phone went crashing down the steps and he swore he had never heard a louder noise in his life. The footsteps stopped. After his phone had settled there was a moment of complete silence and Lance knew that he had truly fucked up.

Unfurling his arms from around his head and peeling open his eyes once more, Lance cautiously reached down for his phone and made his way up the stairs once more, praying at every step. A snail would’ve been faster than him but he couldn’t help it, he was inching towards his doom and he was far too stubborn to turn back now. When he reached the top there was nothing, just the same vast empty corridor that he’d seen a million times before, he let out a long breath and smiled to himself but perhaps a moment too soon. Before he knew what was going on a hand came out of nowhere and slammed him against the icy wall, the cold metal of a knife against his throat.

Lance looked up at his attacker who almost looked as scared as he was but in a way where he was clearly trying to hide how anxious he felt, a person who didn’t know him that well would’ve been fooled but Lance’s years of close inspection had caught the slight glimpses of fret. “Keith?”

Keith’s arm relaxed and he sharply pulled away, “What are you doing here?” He whispered

“You pulled a knife on me! Where the fuck did you get a knife?” Lance demanded

“You need to go back to bed.”

“This is ridiculous, what are you doing? A knife? Really?”

“What am _I_ doing? You’re the one following me!” Keith rebutted

“But I have good reason to!”

The two boys went back and forth, what was once clandestine whispering turned into what was practically shouting at each other, each not fully answering any questions from the other. A loud thump came from the end of the corridor that was still shielded in darkness. They froze. Out in the open inches away from each other’s face with nothing to defend themselves with but a small knife neither knew how to use very well.


End file.
